


Runil's List

by ktyxdovahkiin



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Minor Character Death, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 22:05:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15034304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktyxdovahkiin/pseuds/ktyxdovahkiin
Summary: "He who saves one life has saved the world entire."





	Runil's List

# Runil’s List

**

The carriages creaked as they wended their way through the pass. The snowfall was light, after the frost of the previous night. The mountain air was crisp, and did much for wakefulness.

This was good. Wakefulness was needed. The Thalmor had not yet managed to set up checkpoints, but there was the ever-present danger of encountering a wandering Justiciar patrol, who if not intercepted and eliminated would send word immediately to their superiors about this carriage train.

Twelve hundred, they numbered; mostly Nord, but with a scattering of all the other races in Cyrodiil. Twelve hundred fleeing Thalmor-occupied Cyrodiil... and only three Justiciars would suffice to end them all. Three would call down three hundred upon their heads. It would be a massacre.

Nord, Imperial, Breton, Redguard… even a few Bosmer and Dunmer could be seen here and there, among the wan, worried faces of the passengers. There was but one Altmer, one old High Elf, who was fast asleep, wrapped in warm but tattered furs, his head resting in the lap of a Nord man sitting in the foremost carriage.

A snowflake fell on his wrinkled golden cheek. He stirred, and opened his eyes. Then, realizing the imposition he was causing, he hastily attempted to sit upright. Instantly, a dozen strong helping hands were on him, propping him up firmly but gently, helping him.

“My… my apologies,” he mumbled to the man whose lap he’d inadvertently fallen asleep in.

The bearded hulking Nord smiled, and shook his head slightly in negation. “You needed the rest, old mer.”

The old elf shivered, and drew his furs about himself more tightly. “How far are we from Helgen?”

“We’re only half a day into the Jeralls,” a soft-spoken woman answered him. Her voice had the lilt of the Colovian highlands. 

“Too slow,” he murmured, the disappointment evident in his lined face. 

“We will be alright, old mer,” the Nord man told him, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Thanks to you, we have a chance where before we had none. If we should be found, and I fall with my sword in my hand, I will join my ancestors in Sovngarde. If not for you, I would have died rotting in a Thalmor interrogation cell.”

His ice-blue eyes were soft and kind. “Don’t be afraid for us. We have our lives because of you, Runil. And I… I’m going home, thanks to everything you’ve done for us.”

Great pain was in the old elf’s amber eyes. He shook his head slowly.

“I have done too little… too little… and yet, too much…”

Someone else next to him was pressing something into his hand. He looked down. It was an amulet of Arkay. The Redguard woman beside him smiled.

“Like Tu’whacca, you have helped us find our way. Not to the Far Shores, but from certain death into new life you have delivered us. May the blessings of Tu’whacca be on you, Runil,” she said, her voice dropping into a reverent whisper as she uttered the benediction.

Of course, he thought. Tu’whacca was Arkay, the psychopomp God of Life and Death, as the Forebears of Hammerfell knew him. This woman was a long way from home, as were they all, though some – the Nords – were returning to their ancestral lands.

Runil wept.

They each put an arm around him, the Redguard woman and the Nord man, as his frail shoulders shook and the tears rolled down his face.

“I could’ve… saved more…”

“No… no…” they murmured, shaking their heads and squeezing his hands.

“If I’d just… I could’ve gotten… I could’ve…”

“There are twelve hundred of us here alive and not dead because of you,” someone else said. “Because of your efforts. You helped us when no one else would.”

“If I’d tried harder.” His amber eyes now stared unseeingly at the treeline, where the snow-flecked leaves seemed to meet the piercingly blue sky. “If I’d sold off more of my household goods. I could’ve procured… more documents… altered more dossiers…”

He laughed, a pain-wracked laugh of self-contempt from the anguished depths of his soul. “I didn’t try hard enough… I didn’t sell enough… I wasted so much of my gold, so much… you cannot conceive of…”

“We’re alive because of what you did.”

“I didn’t do enough.”

“You’ve done so much…”

“The… the candlesticks!” His voice cracked. He knew he was raving, but he couldn’t help himself. “The candlesticks… in the cellar… silver, wrought silver, I could’ve found a buyer… why didn’t I find a buyer? I kept the candlesticks. Gathering dust, in the cellar. Shedding no light. No use, no more tallow. No more candles. I could’ve bribed another guard. Saved another person. One more person. One more…”

He was sobbing now. The amulet dug into the palm of his hand as he squeezed.

“Merciful Divines. Why was I not punished? I have done too much. I haven’t done enough. Too much. Not enough.”

His hands flew to his neck, and he gave another hoarse cry, so loud and sharp that it startled a flock of birds somewhere in the surrounding woods. They took to the air in a flutter of frantic wings.

“This necklace… I still have it… why? Why did I forget this? This is silver. Thirty septims. This could’ve fetched thirty septims. One more bribe. Perhaps three more people. Three more people. Three. Or one. One more person.”

He clutched blindly now, tugging at the plain silver necklace he wore, the keepsake that reminded him of an estranged daughter, while his fellow passengers sought gently to restrain him and keep him from hurting himself.

“One more person. That person is dead. Because of me. Because of this. I…”

He seemed to fold into half then, collapsing into himself, burying his head into his hands.

“I could’ve saved one more person. And I didn’t. I didn’t.”

They prayed over him then, for Arkay’s peace to be upon him, for Mara’s mercy to soothe him, but Mara’s tears were not purer than his, or the tears in their eyes.

“I didn’t.”

The carriages creaked, making their way to Helgen Keep.

**

## One year after the Dovahkiin disappeared into the mists of Sovngarde

Runil opened his eyes. “Kust?”

The candle on the table was lit. By its flickering glow, he could make out the figure of a seated man. There was a leather-bound book in his hands.

Runil sat up in his bed. It was not Kust.

“Bolund? What are you… why have you come?” 

Slowly, Bolund looked up from the book and fixed Runil with his stare. 

At that moment, Runil found that there was no fear in his heart, though the look in Bolund’s eyes was bone-chilling, to be sure. Instead, he felt a sense of calm acceptance well up from somewhere deep within him. After all this time, things would be put right. He had waited for so many years that it was a relief, now, to find the waiting was over.

“Is this true?” the young Nord asked. He held up the journal. “Is it?”

He rose to his feet, taking Runil’s silence for adequate answer. “You are Thalmor,” he grated.

“I was,” Runil softly replied. “I have not been for many years.”

Bolund spat. “You lied to us.”

Runil bowed his head, silent, unprotesting.

“Did you kill us? Did you kill many of my brothers and sisters?”

Runil closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids, images of fire danced. 

“You came here to Skyrim… to Falkreath… to live among us… as a _liar_ …” Bolund’s breathing was heavy and ragged. “You deceived us… deceived us all… our dead here, our honored dead, under _your care_ …”

“I am a priest of Arkay, my child…”

_“You are no priest of mine!”_

Surely Kust would come… but no. No, this was fate. It was the will of the gods that Kust would have some unknown errand this night, and that Bolund had chosen this night of all nights to sneak into the Hall of the Dead under some suspicions of his own, and chanced upon the old journal Runil had neglected to stow away… on this night, of all nights. 

It had been fate, after all, that had brought the woman from his dreams to his doorstep, the woman now known to all as the Dragonborn. She had retrieved this journal for him, and had kept his solemn secret. It was only the tides of fate, that had first cast Runil adrift, but was now bringing him in, bringing him home, to the shore, at long last.

He only hoped Kust was indeed away on some task of his own, and had not come to harm.

Then he blinked. Bolund had drawn steel. The sword gleamed in his hand.

“You and your kind… all deserve nothing but pain and death. Filthy Thalmor.”

“Bolund, listen…”

“No more. No more lies, _elf._ ” 

Arcane power lay just beyond his fingertips. With a single effort of will, he could summon it to his hands, cloak himself with it, call forth death upon his foe.

He closed his eyes.

“Thalmor scum. Elf scum.” Bolund drew his arm back. “I… am a _Son_ … of _Skyrim._ ”

Runil gasped as the blade went through him, impaling him through the belly. At the same time, the door was flung open. There was a loud cry, a scuffle, a thud.

Then Bolund lay insensate on the ground, and Kust, honest loyal Kust, was at his side, cradling his head, clutching helplessly at the three feet of steel embedded in his body.

“Stay with me. I’ll… I’ll call for Zaria, I’ll wake her, she’ll have something, Runil, stay with me, old man…”

“Kust… it’s alright… it’s alright…”

“Talos preserve us… can you do something? Can you heal yourself?” The stoic man was fighting to keep his voice steady. “Oh Mara have mercy, the blood... Stay with me, please, there’s a scroll somewhere, I can try to use it… no, I’ll go get Zaria right away, just wait, _wait_ …”

“It’s alright… Kust… Kust, listen… listen to me…”

Golden fingers grabbed rough callused hand with irresistible urgency.

“Kust… listen… I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The amber eyes closed, and saw no more.

**

When the Dovahkiin returned from Sovngarde, and came to Falkreath, and was told what had transpired, she went to find Bolund, and Shouted at him until he was ashes in the wind.

Then from atop her mountain, she Shouted Runil’s name into the pattern of the world, that he might be an imperishable spirit; for she willed that it might be so, that the world will always know him in every kalpa, whenever help is needed.

This is what she Shouted:

**LINGRAH LOST HI BRUD BRUDAAT NAAL HIN FAAZAL VAHRUKT, WUTHFALIIL.**

(Long have you borne the burden of your painful memories, old Elf.)

**VOTH KROSIS ZU’U DAAHMAN HI, NUZ NU ZEYDAAN MAH MED LOKLUV.**

(With sorrow I remember you, but now let justice fall like rain.)

**NAAL THU’UMI, RUNIL, ZU’U OFAN NII NU,**

(By my Voice, Runil, I give it now to you,)

**NAAL SULEYK DO KAAN, NAAL SULEYK DO SHOR, AHRK NAAL SULEYK DO ATMORASEWUTH.**

(By the power of Kyne, by the power of Shor, and by the power of Atmora of old.)

**HI LOS ZEYDO KO TAAZOKAAN, PRUZEIM DO GREIZAH.**

(You are Righteous in Tamriel, an example of good.)

**HON AHRK DAMAAN!**

(Hear and remember!)

Look for the helpers, the Dovahkiin says. You will always find people who are helping. 


End file.
